In 2011, the law Firm of Jordan Price Wall Gray Jones & Carlton, PLLC celebrates its 60th year in business.  The Firm traces its roots to 1951 when John R. Jordan, Jr. left the Attorney General's office to start his own practice.  Throughout its sixty years, the Firm's practice areas and clients have grown and evolved significantly.  However, a commitment to results and excellent service from lawyers who are experts in their respective fields has remained constant.  The Firm is proud of its roots in Raleigh and believes its best days are ahead. This belief is based upon the Firm's robust and diverse client base and lawyers with the depth of experience necessary to serve clients with the same high standards set by Mr. Jordan sixty years ago.  This summary of the Firm's history was compiled in 2011 in recognition of the Firm's 60th anniversary.

Mr. Jordan was born in Winton, North Carolina in 1921 and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he graduated in 1942.  He received his law degree there in 1948, having served on the Board of Editors of the Law Review.  Upon graduation, Mr. Jordan opted for public service with the North Carolina Attorney General's Office, rather than accepting a job offer with the New York Stock Exchange in New York.  In addition to his parents being against the idea, Raleigh was considerably closer to his hometown than was New York City.  He began his law career under the guidance of Attorney General Harry McMullan, who served as North Carolina's Attorney General from 1938 to 1955.  Mr. Jordan served in the Attorney General's office from 1948 to 1951.   

Beginning immediately, Mr. Jordan gained a tremendous amount of trial experience in both civil and criminal cases, as well as, appellate experience before the Supreme Court.  At the time, there was no intermediate Court of Appeals in the State.  As a consequence, during the 1950s and early 1960s, the North Carolina Supreme Court was one of the busiest in the country, and was faced with a number of appeals on a range of issues.¹  Therefore, many of the cases in which Mr. Jordan was involved in from the beginning of his career, were appealed directly to the Supreme Court from trial court.²  Ultimately, as a result of an overburdened Supreme Court, the General Assembly submitted a proposal in 1965 to amend Article IV of the North Carolina Constitution to add an intermediate Court of Appeals which was overwhelmingly approved by voters in November of 1965.  The General Assembly enacted legislation creating the Court of Appeals in 1967.

While working for Attorney General McMullan, Mr. Jordan also clerked for Justice Aaron A. F. Seawell of the North Carolina Supreme Court.³  Justice Seawell was nearing the end of a long and distinguished career as a jurist and was not provided a law clerk, so Justice Seawell asked Mr. McMullan if he could share Mr. Jordan’s services.  In the end, Mr. Jordan balanced his time clerking for Justice Seawell and attending to his regular duties with the Attorney General’s office.  Mr. Jordan left the Attorney General’s office in 1951 to enter private practice.  The largest law Firm in the State offered him a position as an associate.   However, Mr. Jordan declined the offer, and in 1951 opened a one room office in the Masonic Temple building located at 133 Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh.⁴  At that time, the General Assembly was considering legislation which would have shifted the collection of taxes to the alcohol beverage wholesaler.  A major wholesaler in eastern North Carolina, with three days’ advance notice, asked Mr. Jordan to attend a legislative committee meeting and speak against the bill.  Mr. Jordan did so and influenced the demise of the proposed legislation.  This success led to one of Mr. Jordan’s first client, the North Carolina Wholesalers Association.  With this initial client onboard, the new law practice had a “paying client”, a source of income to pay the bills in the early years, and enabled the expansion and growth of the practice. 

In the mid-1950s, Mr. Jordan moved into the First Citizens Bank & Trust Building in downtown Raleigh.  During these years he continued his trial practice and the honing of litigation skills which would serve him well in the future.  Mr. Jordan's first associate, William Dawkins, assisted him with some of his criminal trials including at least one murder trial.  In the late 1950s Herbert Toms joined the Firm and its name became Jordan & Toms.  In addition to his young law practice,  Mr. Jordan participated actively in the political arena, serving in the State Senate for three regular sessions and one special session (1959, 1961 and 1963), and ran as a candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 1964.  After this time in elective office and traveling the State widely, while at the same time expanding his law practice, Mr. Jordan focused full-time on the practice of law, beginning a period of substantial Firm growth.

From this time through the early 1970s, the Firm’s practice evolved from primarily representing individuals, to include the representation of commercial banks and banking organizations. A specialty was the representation of commercial banks seeking regulatory approval to establish branches.  In 1969, for example, Mr. Jordan represented First Citizens Bank & Trust Company in a suit against First Union National Bank in an attempt to prevent the Comptroller of the Currency from allowing First Union National Bank to open a branch bank in the North Hills Shopping Center in Raleigh.⁵  The Firm went on to represent many banks in this very competitive regulatory and judicial process both in state and federal courts.⁶  By the mid-1970s, most of North Carolina’s larger banks had extensive statewide branch networks.  As such, the period of contested case “branching” passed.  However, the Firm continued its banking practice, and served as legislative counsel to the North Carolina Bankers Association, as well as counsel to other financial services organizations including Atlantic States Bankcard Association (the Mastercard processor for southeastern states), North Carolina Payments System and the NC Automated Clearing House Association (implementing automated debit and credit processes). In his capacity as chief lobbyist for the state’s banking industry, in the period prior to “interstate banking”, Mr. Jordan was instrumental in revisions to North Carolina laws that enabled its commercial banks to take the lead when interstate banking was approved, which ultimately led to North Carolina becoming one of the nation’s banking centers.  During this period, Mr. Jordan began to be recognized as one of the state’s leading and most influential lobbyists.  During this evolution of the Firm, and as First Citizens Bank filled its headquarters building in Raleigh with bank operations, the Firm moved to larger offices in the Branch Banking & Trust Building at 333 Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh.  In 1970, William R. Hoke and Charles B. Morris, Jr. joined the Firm, with its name becoming Jordan, Morris & Hoke.

In 1971 the General Assembly enacted legislation bringing into the University of North Carolina the state’s ten remaining public universities which until that time had remained legally separate: Appalachian State University, East Carolina University, Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina School of the Arts, Pembroke State University, Western Carolina University, and Winston-Salem State University. This action created a sixteen campus University system.   Mr. Jordan was active in the University consolidation effort, and in 1972 was appointed to the inaugural University of North Carolina Board of Governors, the governing body for the new sixteen campus University system.  An active member of the Board of Governors for the next twenty three years, Mr. Jordan served as Chairman of the Board of Governors from 1980 to 1984.⁷  He was Chairman during a time in which federal litigation threatened to cut off all federal funds to the University system over a disagreement about the racial balance in the student bodies.   The litigation was resolved with the signing of a Consent Decree in 1981—which sustained the University’s position.  Years later, William “Bill” Friday, President of the University of North Carolina, would recall, “John negotiated directly with the head of the Department of Education, Secretary Bell—and actually concluded these debates for all those years.  John was the man that engineered it with Ted Bell.  For that one thing alone—he deserves the praise of our entire State.”  Remarkably, during his service on the University’s Board of Governors, Mr. Jordan was also engaged in the full time practice of law, including an active litigation practice in which he appeared before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Joseph E. Wall, a current member of the Firm, joined the Firm in 1972 as an associate.  Mr. Wall began law school in 1967, leaving in 1969 for basic training at Ft. Bragg and subsequent deployed to Vietnam in March of 1970.  He returned to law school in the fall of 1971.  Upon graduation and joining the Firm, he was immediately involved with representation of the North Carolina Association of ABC Boards which had just hired the Firm to handle its legislative and administrative work. 

In the mid-1970s, Mr. Wall worked with Mr. Jordan in representing the State of North Carolina in a dispute with the Washington State Apple Advertising Commission.  North Carolina had passed a law requiring that all apples shipped into the State be in closed containers and identified with no grade on the container.  Such measures effectively prevented apples from being shipped into North Carolina with a “Washington State Apple” display for customers to see.  Ultimately, Jordan and Wall briefed and argued the case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1977, which issued a ruling striking the North Carolina statute as violating the commerce clause in the U.S. Constitution.  The landmark case of Hunt v. Washington State Apple, 97 S.Ct. 2434, 53 L.Ed.2d 383 (1977), has since been cited over 2500 times in various state and federal cases and is a seminal case interpreting the commerce clause of the federal constitution.   Mr. Wall was named partner on January 1, 1975.  His practice came to be centered around insurance defense work with a specialty in the representation of trucking companies, while continuing to represent the interests of the NC Association of ABC Boards. 

In May of 1974 Robert (“Bob”) Price graduated from Northwestern University School of Law and began work as an associate in September of that year.  During the summer of 1974, he sat for the North Carolina bar exam, together with his classmate from Northwestern, Stephen Dolan, who would later join the Firm as well.  As one of the Firm’s six lawyers, Mr. Price worked closely with Mr. Jordan. Mr. Price’s first project involved North Carolina insurance rates.  Working on behalf of the North Carolina Bankers Association with a consortium of interested parties including the Association of NC Life Insurance Companies, the NC  Retail Merchants Association and the NC Auto Dealers Association, the Firm participated in several weeks of hearings before Commissioner of Insurance John Ingram. Ingram sought to mandate a 50% reduction in credit insurance rates.  The participants in these hearings offered a substantial voluntary rate reduction; however, the Insurance Commissioner proceeded to promulgate the larger 50% rate cut.  At the conclusion of the hearing, the Firm obtained an injunction in Wake County Superior Court, preventing the rate cut from taking effect. Meanwhile, Jordan and Price drafted a proposed statute enacted by the General Assembly in 1975 as the North Carolina Credit Insurance Act.⁸ Among other things, the Act codified the voluntary rate reduction originally proposed. The Firm’s success in this matter has often been cited as reflecting its expertise and capacity to handle the needs of its clients in multiple branches of government – regulatory, judicial and legislative.

Jordan and Price continued their legislative work in the 1975 legislative session working with the North Carolina Bankers Association.  Mr. Price worked with Mr. Jordan on the NC Bankers Association legislative program which was far ranging, involving bills that affected banks as businesses, lenders and as trust departments.  In the early 1970s the manual clearing of checks had become both labor intensive and increasingly costly to the financial system.  On behalf of the banking industry, the Firm chartered North Carolina Payments System, Inc. (“NorCaPS”) in 1974, with a board comprised of representatives of large, medium sized and small banks in the state.  NorCaPS provided the research, planning and educational efforts that led to the initiation of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in North Carolina.  In 1976, NorCaPS created a second organization, the North Carolina Automated Clearinghouse Association, Inc. (“NorCACHA”), with a board comprised of financial institutions including the State Employees’ Credit Union, to organize and enable the initiation of an electronic clearinghouse to support automated payroll deposits and automated bill payments.

Mr. Price was named partner in the Firm on January 1, 1978 and Mr. Jordan began turning over various Firm administration matters to him.  Mr. Price continued with management aspects of the Firm, where his role evolved over a period of years to that of the Firm’s managing partner.  In the early 1980s, Mr. Price assumed the role of legal and legislative counsel to several nonprofit organizations including the Association of North Carolina Homes for the Aging (NCANPHA). Working with these nonprofit continuing care retirement communities, the Firm lead in the drafting of the North Carolina Continuing Care Retirement Communities Act enacted at N.C.G.S. §58-64-1 et seq. Beginning in 1982, he began serving as legal counsel to Family Health International (“FHI”), a nonprofit organization originally conceived out of strong U.S. interests in international development, and concern regarding the “population explosion” in developing countries.  Mr. Price served as FHI’s legal counsel from 1982. He was named Of Counsel to the Firm in 2002 at the time he was appointed Executive Vice President & General Counsel of FHI, where he remains today. 

Henry W. Jones Jr. graduated from the University of Richmond Law School in 1978 and joined the Firm in 1978.  After clerking for a small Firm in Clinton, North Carolina, Mr. Jones was one of about thirty applicants interviewed by Mr. Price in Raleigh.  After little became of this first interview, Raleigh attorney, Tom Adams, helped arrange a second interview with Mr. Price and Mr. Jordan.  After this second interview, Mr. Jones was offered the job and started work in August of 1978.  The first case on which he worked was in representation of the North Carolina Bankers Association, challenging the State Employees Credit Union’s attempt to add members who did not have the common bond of state employment.  The case was appealed to the Supreme Court which ultimately upheld the lower court’s ruling in favor of the Firm’s client, finding that the “common bond” for credit union membership could not be expanded.⁹ 

By 1983, the Firm had begun representing many trade and professional groups including the North Carolina Pediatric Society, North Carolina Society of Accountants, STAC – Specialty Trade Association Council, North Carolina Plumbing Heating & Cooling Association and the North Carolina Electrical Contractor Association.  With this wide range of clients with legislative interests, the Firm's lawyers with active legislative practices included not only Mr. Jordan, but also Mr. Price, Mr. Wall, Mr. Gray and Mr. Jones.  These practices frequently complemented each other. While earlier legislative practice had focused on banking and insurance, beginning in the 1980's, the Firm was involved with the enactment of legislation across a wide range of issues.  There are many laws on the books today which the Firm wrote, amended, or was otherwise involved in getting passed into law.¹⁰ The legislative practice also led to other practice areas as well. For example, initial legislative representation of the construction industry gave rise to an active construction litigation practice for the Firm.  Today, the Firm has several lawyers who devote a substantial part of their practice to construction law.  Additionally, Mr. Jones developed a large practice in the representation of poultry companies and a poultry industry trade group.

Another area of practice which the Firm began to develop within a few years of Mr. Jones' arrival in 1978 was the representation of homeowners associations and developers. As that practice has grown and evolved, the Firm today represents literally over one thousand homeowners, townhome and condominium associations throughout the State of North Carolina.  The practice dates back to the late 1970s when Mr. Jones was elected to the Board of Directors of the townhome association in which he lived.  At the time, there was a dearth of laws and lawyers in North Carolina that could answer basic questions on assessments, covenant enforcement and other legal issues associated with the day-to-day operations of planned communities.  The Firm's practice grew from representing homeowners associations in collection of assessments, to include other aspects of community association law such as covenant enforcement, Board meetings, membership meetings, amendments to legal documents and representing developers in drafting covenants and forming homeowners associations.  Today, there are over 17,000 community associations in North Carolina collectively representing over 2,025,000 households or 53% of the owner occupied households in North Carolina.¹¹   Mr. Jones was a founding member of the Carolinas Chapter of the Community Associations Institute and a primary drafter of the North Carolina Condominium Act in 1986 and the North Carolina Planned Community Act in 1998.¹²   Over the last several decades, the Firm has been instrumental in the development of community association law in the State. Our lawyers have represented homeowners associations and trade groups before courts at every level in cases of sweeping importance to the ways in which condominium and homeowners associations operate.¹³

Frank Gray, having served for six years as legal counsel for the NC League of Municipalities, joined the Firm in 1981.  With his experience representing the League and its member cities and towns, Mr. Gray was already well versed in legislative practice, and has continued to represent clients before the General Assembly.  Mr. Gray's first client with the Firm was the Town of Morrisville, which he continues to represent today.  In addition to an active legislative practice in which he represents a variety of trade and industry groups, and his counsel to municipalities, Mr. Gray has worked extensively in banking, and maintains an active banking practice today.

In 1985, the Firm's name was Jordan Price Wall Gray & Jones, and in 1986 the Firm moved to expanded offices at 225 Hillsborough Place in Raleigh, the present day site of Campbell University School of Law.  In 1986, after leaving Congress, Ike Andrews began practicing with the Firm for a period of time.¹⁴  That same year, Paul Flick began work for the Firm as an associate.   Mr. Flick briefly left the Firm in 1991 to practice with his law school classmate, Terry Carlton.¹⁵  In 1993, Mr. Flick returned to the Firm, and since 2002 has served as the Firm's Managing Partner.  The Firm continued to evolve in the 1990s, the most apparent change being continued diversification of clients and practice areas.  In 1998, Terry Carlton joined the Firm and brought with him an active estate planning and transactional practice.  In 1999, the Firm changed its name to what it is known as today, Jordan Price Wall Gray Jones & Carlton, PLLC.  After joining the Firm, Mr. Carlton continued to expand the business and estate planning practice which continues to complement the Firm's strong historical litigation and legislative practice.  Today, estate planning and transactional matters are among the Firm's strengths.

In 2001, on its 50th anniversary, the Firm moved to its present site, aptly located at 1951 Clark Avenue in Raleigh.  In 2002, after 28 years of active practice with the Firm, Mr. Price became Of Counsel to the Firm, joining Mr. Jordan in “Of Counsel” capacity.  In 2006, the Firm purchased the Clark Avenue building.  Today, the Firm has sevnteen full time lawyers and 2 Of Counsel lawyers. The Firm’s size is intentional -- sufficiently large to handle the largest litigation matters, but, small enough to provide a high level of service in a cost effective manner for its clients.  The Firm has a broad client base and practice and continues its tradition of an active legislative practice.  In addition to this legislative practice, the Firm’s structure now includes a “litigation” practice group and a “transactional” practice group.  Within these practice groups, the Firm has lawyers with significant experience and recognition as experts in their fields of practice.  Thus, in 2011, the Firm is well positioned to continue to build upon its first sixty years in the practice of law.